What is the controversy surrounding DNA and the Book of Mormon?
If The Book of Mormon is true (and I believe it is) then it is a literal historical record of real people in addition to its primary purpose of testifying of Jesus Christ. Lehi and his family, who came from the Holy Land area, where descendants of Joseph that was sold into Egypt (1 Nephi 5:14). The three primary races of the earth, Asian (Oriental), African (Negroid) and European (Caucasian) are quite easily distinguished from each other through specific DNA markers or ‘signatures’ that delineate their ancestry. The Book of Mormon tells us that the descendants of Lehi, (including his wife Sariah, Ishmael and his wife, and Zoram) lived and multiplied to a great extent somewhere in the America’s. See BoM Helaman 11:20 and 3:8 and also 3 Nephi 1:17. Since it is highly probable that Sariah, Ishmael and Zoram were also of the same genetic stock (not Asian or African), their genetic signatures today would most certainly be classified by present day geneticists as ‘European’ rather than Asian
